Oakland welcomes tech help to improve transparency

City leaders on Tuesday welcomed Oakland's "Peace Corps for Geeks," whose mission will be to make Oakland government more transparent.

Oakland is one of 10 cities participating in Code for America, a national fellowship program that provides cities with young tech-savvy professionals to help create new online applications that bring greater openness, efficiency and participation to local government.

Oakland's three Code for America fellows will focus on improving systems for making public record requests and procuring city contracts.

"Participating in the 2013 Code for America fellowship will be another huge step in the City of Oakland's efforts to foster innovation locally," Councilmember Libby Schaaf said in a prepared statement.

Earlier this week, the city launched an open data portal, https://data.oaklandnet.com, which includes crime statistics and census data.

The civic group Open Oakland, which also is dedicated to making city data more accessible, is continuing to meet weekly at City Hall.